5 Mar, 2010 @ 11:54
1 min read
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Spain authorities seize British baby

SPANISH authorities have dramatically seized the baby of a British couple who fled the UK.

Social workers swooped on two-week-old Jim Junior in Alicante after they were passed information by Suffolk County Council.

Jim and Carissa Smith โ€“ whose real names canโ€™t be used for legal reasons โ€“ moved to Spainโ€™s east coast in December to avoid the child being taken.

Yet Spanish social services intervened while Carissa was still breastfeeding Jim at Torrevieja hospital following a warning issued by Suffolk authorities.

The baby has now been placed in the care of a Spanish family.

The coupleโ€™s first child, Poppy, had been seized by social services in October 2008 when just 11-weeks-old. She remains in foster care in England.

Despite his child being taken, father Jim praised the efforts of Spanish social services, despite the sensitivity of the situation.

He explained: โ€œWe intend to work with the Spanish authorities and they are fantastic. They, I know, are honest and trustworthy.โ€

He also claimed that the information given to Spanish authorities had changed from alleged concerns about emotional harm to the possibility of physical harm.

Meanwhile, a local British MP heavily criticised the intervention of UK authorities in notifying Spanish officials.

Tim Yeo, the MP for South Suffolk, said that there was โ€œno justificationโ€ for the councilโ€™s intervention because the baby was โ€œperfectly cared forโ€.

Click here to read more News from The Olive Press.

Jon Clarke is a Londoner who worked at the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday as an investigative journalist before moving to Spain in 2003 where he helped set up the Olive Press.

After studying Geography at Manchester University he fell in love with Spain during a two-year stint teaching English in Madrid.

On returning to London, he studied journalism and landed his first job at the weekly Informer newspaper in Teddington, covering hundreds of stories in areas including Hounslow, Richmond and Harrow.

This led on to work at the Sunday Telegraph, Sunday Mirror, Standard and even the Sun, before he landed his first full time job at the Daily Mail.

After a year on the Newsdesk he worked as a Showbiz correspondent covering mostly music, including the rise of the Spice Girls, the rivalry between Oasis and Blur and interviewed many famous musicians such as Joe Strummer and Ray Manzarak, as well as Peter Gabriel and Bjorn from Abba on his own private island.

After a year as the News Editor at the UKโ€™s largest-selling magazine Now, he returned to work as an investigative journalist in Features at the Mail on Sunday.

As well as tracking down Jimi Hendrixโ€™ sole living heir in Sweden, while there he also helped lead the initial investigation into Prince Andrewโ€™s seedy links to Jeffrey Epstein during three trips to America.

He had dozens of exclusive stories, while his travel writing took him to Jamaica, Brazil and Belarus.

He is the author of three books; Costa Killer, Dining Secrets of Andalucia and My Search for Madeleine.

Contact jon@theolivepress.es

3 Comments Leave a Reply

  1. That is evil. Taking a child still nursing from it’s loving mother because it could “some day be abused”?

    Not only is that ILLEGAL or rather SHOULD be illegal, people who destroy families by ripping them about without just cause should be imprisoned.

    And have their own children removed.

    (Sigh, but eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind doesn’t it? Still, I Do think the evil people who remove children in such filthy power trips should have the tables turned, every aspect of who they are dug up shoved in their face and their ability to parent trashed a ruined. And see how they like it.)

  2. right, ask them to prohibit this to themselves.

    “You Outsiders! It’s your children we’re after, not you! We’ll get them, too, over your dead bodies.” (c) Hellstrom’s Hive

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